Civicrm MailChimp Integration

[Donald Lobo]

make it happen info for 4.4 is here;

http://wiki.civicrm.org/confluence/display/CRM/Make+it+Happen
http://civicrm.org/blogs/michael-mcandrew/make-it-happen-44-submit-your-campaigns-now

lobo

[sonicthoughts]

Joe - it may not be necessary to move away from drupal entities at all.  There is work by Eileen and others to have civicrm work as a bona-fide entity in drupal.  This would allow us to use many drupal modules that operate on civicrm fields.  Obviously this is hypothetical since the civicrm-entity work is still in progress, but it seems to me on the surface that we may have much more bang for the buck if we could get the entity thing nailed and let the drupal-mailchimp module (or other drupal mail integration modules) manage the mail process logic but rather than work on drupal profile entities and groups, it can work on civicrm groups and update unsubscribes, sync lists, etc. I realize that this is a very different approach than we have traditionally taken, but it would open the door to far more integration with drupal modules and dramatically reduce the duplication of effort.  Furthermore, we could benefit from the contribution of the much larger drupal audience. 

I am aware of several projects that are working on this.  See this thread for more details:
http://forum.civicrm.org/index.php/topic,27227.0.html

and some discussion on github:
https://github.com/eileenmcnaughton/civicrm_entity/issues/1
https://github.com/bangpound/civicrmentity

There has already been some work done using the views-entity / token integration (http://drupal.org/node/1253612) but I have not tried it.  Clearly this is not yet a complete solution (bounce processing, etc.) and there is definitely interest - http://drupal.org/node/1890840.  Note that there is very strong support for drupal entities (caching, remote services, etc.)

The technical architecture is beyond me, but intuitively I'm convinced that this type of integration can transform druapl-civicrm architecture and open it up to a the broader drupal community.  RedHen has had a lot of success by integrating as a drupal entity and making it much easier to work with in new distributions (OpenOutreach, Drupal Commerce, etc.)  We could avoid many of the drupal-integration band-aids in views, calendar, etc. and take advantage of all the drupal displays like DisplaySuite, Panels Fields, etc.

Perhaps we can make 2 MIHs, one for Entities and another for extending Drupal-Mailchimp.!

[jtbayly]

Oh.... please please please. I've been wanting this for a long time. I keep thinking it will happen. I know I know. "Give money, give code or shut up." Well, thanks, Lobo. You're very good at saying that clearly, politely, and repetitiously. I've been asked to shut up before, since I have neither code nor money.

So I only speak up every once in a while now. This is one of those times.

Please, somebody do this. A specific Mailchimp extension. Entities in Drupal allowing us to use the Drupal Mailchimp module. I don't care which. Just, let's make it happen.

Thanks,
-Joseph

[erogers]

make it happen info for 4.4 is here;

http://wiki.civicrm.org/confluence/display/CRM/Make+it+Happen
http://civicrm.org/blogs/michael-mcandrew/make-it-happen-44-submit-your-campaigns-now

lobo

I don't see MailChimp on that list. Where can we contribute to it?

[Donald Lobo]

Unfortunately no one from the civi-chimp community submitted an MIH proposal for this extension

lobo

[mostou]

Sonicthoughts: great summary you have made here and on the MIH page about the entities projects. I have just tested the civicrm_entity project by Eileen and it works really great with views+vbo+rules for my needs.

How do we proceed from here? I am not a developer myself, more a web project manager and system manager. I know how to edit basic php and write some basic Civi API functions, but I am definately not a hardcore developer. It's not my professional job either - just volunteering in some non-profit organizations so funding from my site will unfortunately also be very limited.

But I really wish to see this happen. Having CiviCRM as the CRM core and using more of Drupal functionality as frontend for instance for member administration will be a very strong combination. I have also taken a look on Redhen, but I miss a lot of the basic CiviCRM core functionality, but they have the benefit of using Drupal entities.

This thread was initally about the CiviCRM MailChimp integration and it's not my intention to highjack the thread for discussing about the entities project. So how do we proceed from here regarding entities? As far as I can see there is no MIH candidate for this.

[Donald Lobo]

I think a LOT of us really want to see this happen. Based on our prior integration experience with webform and civicrm, we do think that this will be a super powerful attractive combination that will help the drupal + civi ecosystem significantly

However, the open question is who can do it and/or who will fund it. Eileen and others have made a really good start and hopefully the community can come together and fund that group to build it out completely and maintain it for the future

lobo

[mostou]

Is it possible to make a funding page like for the MIH projects? I know it is too late for making this a MIH project, but if there was a funding page, we could ask people that are interested in a continuous and much more improved Drupal integration to donate.

I would like to donate as well, eventhough it would not be much as a private person, but the more people donating the better. Pete mentioned in the vbo thread that they will try and take a look at it next week.

[Donald Lobo]

you should follow the steps here

http://civicrm.org/blogs/michael-mcandrew/make-it-happen-44-submit-your-campaigns-now

if there is enough demand, interest and expressions of funding, we can add it in as an MIH

Note that integration modules are not dependent on civicrm versions as much, so can be beyond the release cycle

lobo

[mostou]

Thanks a lot for the info, Lobo! I will discuss it with Pete and Shawn.

/Morten

[sonicthoughts]

I think a LOT of us really want to see this happen. Based on our prior integration experience with webform and civicrm, we do think that this will be a super powerful attractive combination that will help the drupal + civi ecosystem significantly

Well, just a couple of thoughts:
1. First Sorry for hijacking the Mailchimp thread - perhaps should cross post ....
2. I think there are a few challenges with getting support for this namely:
-It would be a pretty fundamental capability that serves multiple use cases, whereas most MIH projects seem to serve one or two use cases
-Most MIH projects seem to be spearheaded by developers, part of the idea here is to empower site builders who would prefer to use entities rather than modules/php/api's
- A lot of the value would be seen in Total Cost of Ownership and maintenance over the long haul (ie. compatibility over civicrm and drupal releases) which is always hard to rationalize.  It may actually save the core team a lot in terms of maintaining so many integration points (views, civi-webforms, rules,etc)
-I get the sense we need some (more) education on what this could mean for CiviCRM (I started this here which is probably the wrong place: http://wiki.civicrm.org/confluence/display/CRM/Make+it+happen+candidates) Perhaps a blog on this??
3. There are many approaches to going after entity integration and several tools avail.  Most have been very tactical, trying to solve a point problem (rules, views, etc.) rather than a more strategic approach.  It would be great to start to scope out a roadmap with the help of the core team.  That way some tactical approaches could be in the context of the larger vision.  I'm willing to participate and contribute where I can be helpful but getting you, coleman, eileen, or someone else to help scaffold and own a broader integration might help move this forward.  Frankly, from an admittedly layman point of view, I think when we canvas the tools and resources there may be an elegant and frugal path to get a lot of this done quickly.... but that might just be naive optimism .

[Max Hunter]

Saw that  http://civicrm.org/extensions/mailchimp-sync just popped up in the extensions directory.  Can anyone share their experiences with this extension?

I've had several organizations request this integration in the past few weeks, and I'm excited to try this out!

[sonicthoughts]

I hope this is fresh code or a complete refactor of the http://www.targetintegration.com/downloads/mailchimp-civicrm-sync.html becuase that had many issues.  In fact based on the complaints I noticed it was removed from mailchimps directory: http://connect.mailchimp.com/category/CRM?sort=most-popular.  I'll take a look at this when I can but this would be a great help for civicrm if we can get it to work.

[Max Hunter]

At a glance from my phone (traveling at the moment) it looked like fresh code.  I agree with everyone that TI's integration seemed more like an alpha, but I'll post my experience with this extension once it's implemented it next week.

Don't mean to derail the CiviCRM/Drupal entities discussion -- that's very exciting too!

[krypto]

Have been playing with the new MailChimp extension for a day now and just got it working with our WordPress setup. It's now cheerily syncing some of our smart groups, each with a few hundred subscribers. Looks good!

I've yet to let it loose on our 20k mailing list. And I can't get the unsubscribe requests via webhooks to work - not sure what's going on there.

I had to tweak it a touch for WordPress, and to fix an issue with our weird group contact caches - I've posted my changes as issues in github so the developer can check and yell at me if I've done anything stupid.